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NOS ASTRA NIGHTS 2: SACRIFICE by T.A. WHITEwww.nosastranights.com

[email protected]© 2010 T.A. WHITE & BIOWARE/EA

The warmth of the night had all but dried her black armour. Tirahin had hoped to depart the

freighter before it reached the lake, but it must’ve accelerated faster than she’d anticipated.

She left the harbour and made her way into the lower city. She could’ve hailed a cab, but on

Illium, they weren’t entirely discreet. So instead, head bowed, she began the long jog back

home.

*

By noon of the following day, Tirahin was in familiar territory. She’d stopped only once on

her return journey, to wash and eat in a downbeat district that she’d never visited before

(her omni-tool was configured to access the false bank account she’d created). She used

service elevators to ascend the skyscraper she’d once called home, and made her way to the

spaceport, via the Nos Astra Exchange.

She skulked in the shadows, scouting the busy walkways. She averted her eyes as a

group of fellow asari flocked past. It would take only one familiar face to blow her cover.

She barely knew the spaceport, her departure yesterday being her first visit in years. She

did her best to read the signs and directions from a distance, and covertly consulted her

omni-tool’s maps.

As she slipped around the outskirts of the complex, she noticed an unusually high

police presence. Positioning herself behind a stairway, close to the tower’s edge, she

deduced that she was above where Elnora had placed the Blue Suns hideout, in the old cab

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depot. She looked over the barrier for a way down. Other than a small balcony, perhaps 100

metres below, there was nothing down there but the black void of the lower city.

Across the square, two officers – an asari and a male turian – finished questioning a

quarian female, and started towards Tirahin’s stairway. By the time she noticed them they

were practically on top of her. She backed further into the shade of the stairs, observing the

holo of an unfamiliar asari, who bore striking red facial markings, in the turian’s hand.

Uncertain if her nerve would hold, should she break cover, she glanced again over the edge

of the tower, then looked apprehensively at the crowded vantage points, which extended

perpendicular to the tower’s face.

Resisting the urge to create a mass effect field – a glowing biotic was hardly

inconspicuous – she vaulted the barrier. Plummeting towards the small balcony, she flared

her biotics ten metres from impact, reducing her mass, and the mass of space-time all

around her. Too late – she smacked hard into the metallic floor.

*

Tirahin woke with a start. She was alone on the balcony. The dark corridor beyond

appeared deserted. She crawled inside and leant against the wall, nursing her head.

Something was different. She realised with a shock that the sun was setting. She activated

her omni-tool. Five hours? She’d been out cold for five hours?

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Jumping to her feet, she keyed her omni-tool, requesting the map for this level. There

was no map. It was one of the abandoned areas that she’d noticed on an earlier inspection

of the tower’s plans. According to the database, this level was vacated three years ago. The

fusty smell wafting towards her seemed to confirm that as fact. Perhaps this was the old cab

depot. Switching on the omni-tool’s flashlight, she readied her biotics, took a deep breath,

and moved into the darkness.

The corridor turned a corner. She inched around the outside wall, flashlight held high,

trying to get a fix on what lay ahead. The passage opened into a large, circular room. As

she stepped inside, she saw that it had been gutted by fire. Rows of seats, which had clearly

once circled the room, were contorted and fabric-less; shattered control panels lined the

walls; the ceiling had part-collapsed, revealing the bulkhead that separated this level from

the next. The floor was elevated above a central pit. Tirahin trod carefully towards it, shards

of glass cracking underfoot. The pit looked like it had once housed a computer mainframe.

The wreckage lay in a small crater. A bomb blast?

Several corridors led from the main chamber to adjacent rooms, all of them bathed in

the same darkness. Although the fire hadn’t reached these areas, they bore the shaken

hallmarks of a blast. And still there were no bodies, or even strewn personal belongings.

Maybe it had simply been the vacant site of a weapons test.

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She moved on to the foyer, the only place she’d not explored. Here the darkness

receded somewhat, and her footsteps were joined by the distant hum of the city. She

approached the empty windows, and looked out across a massive, undercover cab landing

zone, its cavernous expanse sliced from the building. Her mouth dried up. She breathed

deeply, reining in her nerves.

To the left, Nos Astra was visible through the wide bay door, neon lanes of air-traffic

streaking across the orange vista. She panned the flashlight over the landing zone. A few

cabs were still here, tilted on their sides. They appeared in good shape, though were

unlikely to fly anywhere but straight down. To the right, a service garage was nestled in the

corner, another abandoned cab beside it.

She made for the exit onto the zone, where a fallen news kiosk blocked the open

doorway. She used her biotics to gently lift it aside, then stepped out.

As in the terminal, the doors that would’ve joined the landing area to the rest of this

level were sealed shut. The site had been completely marooned. If her omni-tool hadn’t told

her otherwise, she would’ve sworn that the whole place was in fallout.

She shone her flashlight towards the small garage in the corner, and advanced

towards it. As she neared, she noticed that the cab here wasn’t tilted on its side like the

others. A light suddenly flashed on its dashboard. She shut off the flashlight and took a

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knee. Her right hand made a fist, blue flames rolling around it. She strained her ears, but

heard only the city.

She crept closer to the vehicle. It was a personal shuttle, empty, but on standby. She

pinned herself to the garage wall. Still no sound. She peeked inside – and had to double-

take. A small, back-lit fish tank sat on a workbench on the far side of the room. It emitted a

blue glow, which didn’t quite reach the room’s dark corners, and contained a single Illium

skald fish.

“Marcus, it’s Huth.”

Tirahin recoiled out of sight. There was a communicator in the room, and what

sounded like a batarian on the other end.

“The ship’s secure.” The batarian – Huth – snorted. “The crew were as weak as you

are pathetic! You’ll be hurling again when I tell you what we did to them!”

Tirahin’s heart sank. Shepard…

“Marcus? You there?”

Silence.

“Not again! Amateur!

“Look, if you can hear me, the cannon’s on board the freighter and ready to go. So

get rid of that damn fish and meet us at the Normandy’s dock! Shepard’s inbound, forty

minutes!”

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Tirahin’s skin prickled all over, relief mixing with desperation. She focused her

breathing, attempting to slow her heart rate.

She turned the flashlight back on, then stepped inside the garage, omni-tool and

biotic-hand both raised, ready to fight. Her flashlight quickly settled on a Blue Suns helmet,

which lay on a cargo crate in the far-right corner. It was likely the source of the

transmission. Something moved in her peripheral vision. She jerked the flashlight towards

it, revealing a Blue Suns mercenary with a submachine gun trained on her. He fired.

Her kinetic barriers initially deflected the volley. With no cover, she kneeled, keying

her omni-tool to activate her tech armour. As the kinetic barriers fell beneath the barrage,

the armour’s holographic shield expanded, bulking her up until she looked like a small

krogan, and deflecting the continuing wave of bullets.

The tech shield itself suddenly verged on collapse. Tirahin was about to launch a

biotic barrier, when the mercenary’s gun clicked – he’d emptied his thermal clip. As he

reloaded, she flared her biotics, and hurled a powerful singularity at him. It connected, a

muted explosion blasting his body into the wall. The explosive force shattered the nearby

fish tank, sending shards arcing across the room. Tirahin turned her face away, the remains

of her shield nullifying the few fragments that reached her.

She rushed over to the mercenary. Without helmet, his dilated brown eyes stared

vacantly up at her. It was the human who’d visited her in Eternity. His neck was broken.

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He’d emerged from an unseen door, which faced the far-right corner of the room, and led to

a small, partitioned kitchen area. He’d been sick in the sink, and there was an untouched

glass of a green liquor on the side.

Tirahin ran to the remains of the fish tank, slipping on the wet surface. The skald fish

was absent from the workbench. She found it dead on the floor, impaled by a piece of glass.

She wept. “Forgive me. Know that your spark remains. Keelah se’lai.”

She grabbed the mercenary’s helmet from the crate, and ran to the waiting shuttle.

Wiping her eyes, she prepared the craft for flight, then sped across the landing zone, out

into the evening air.

Banking left, she soared above the tower, and made a pass over the docking ports. All

the berthed ships were freighters, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She flew to the

far side of the spaceport. Putting on the Blue Suns helmet, she descended towards a landing

zone.

Though open-faced, the helmet afforded some protection from prying eyes, as she

marched through the spaceport’s atrium.

“Marcus!”

Tirahin jolted at the voice from inside the helmet. Huth.

Two females, a human and a turian, stopped their conversation and looked at her.

“Are you alright?” said the turian, as other passers-by stopped and stared.

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“Who’s there?” said Huth.

Tirahin smiled, nodded to the turian, and made a swift exit from view.

“The Blue Suns!” someone said, as she slipped down a narrow alleyway between a

café and a bar. It was a dead end. A tall, tinted window overlooked the docking ports. The

back door to the bar was open, revealing a store room.

“I can hear you,” said Huth. “You’re in the atrium, aren’t you? I heard the loud

speaker.”

She held her breath, not daring to speak.

“I take it you’ve killed Marcus? Thanks, you’ve saved me a job. Now, would you

mind telling me who you are?”

She was ready to lose the helmet, when Huth spoke again. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll

be forced to call in a little favour from the Cop Shop. I’m sure they’d love to know about a

dangerous Blue Suns merc hiding in the atrium. If you know what we’re up to, which I

think you do, and you’re trying to stop us, which I think you are, then I bet a lockdown

would really suit you right about now, eh?”

This was the moment. She could turn, run, and let Shepard die. Or fight, because this

was it.

“This is Illium,” she said into the helmet, “not Khar’Shan, or Korlus, or some other

backwater dump! Cops here rule the streets – not the other way around – and it’s all thanks

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to people like Marcus, who are willing to talk. You’re right, Huth, I do know what you’re

up to. But no, I’m not trying to stop you – I’m going to stop you. So here’s a tip: leave the

Normandy’s dock, and get on that hijacked freighter of yours, because the lockdown starts

right now!”

Tirahin leant into the bar’s store room and punched the fire alarm. Sirens erupted all

around. People ran from the atrium.

“What did you do?” said Huth. “You’re no cop!”

“Tracking Officer Dara, at your service, batarian!” said Tirahin.

“Dara? But – ”

There was a terrible sound of twisting metal.

“No!” said Huth. “Kavem, stop the ship!”

Tirahin looked out of the large window. Directly below, a freighter wrenched away

from its mooring, sending the vestibule crashing down the side of the skyscraper. She

stepped back, aimed her omni-tool at the massive pane, and fired an explosive plasma

round. The glass cracked, but didn’t shatter. She closed her eyes and charged, smashing

straight through the window.

Thudding against the freighter’s massive hull, her impact was lessened with a biotic

field. The ship’s thrusters fired. Tirahin flung herself towards a nearby emergency hatch.

Breaking the lock, she dropped into the hold.

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The ship had no outboard armaments, which meant that if the Suns’ plan was still

live, Huth’s cannon was somewhere inside. And any weapon capable of destroying a frigate

as advanced as the Normandy (that is, if Liara’s description of the old Normandy was

anything to go by) must surely be in one of the large cargo holds. Well, one of the holds

except this one, which was stacked to the brim with foodstuffs.

Tirahin made her way further into the ship. She arrived astern, having encountered no

resistance, and cautiously entered the aft hold. A large, mounted cannon lay in the centre of

the floor, facing the port bay door. It shimmered turquoise, protected by a shield unlike

anything she’d seen before. Her biotic attacks couldn’t breach the barrier. Its power source

was behind the shield itself, presumably remote-activated. Her omni-tool identified the

weapon as a formidable mass-accelerator, carrying a radiation-emitting bomb. Wrapped in

a phasic envelope at launch, the tungsten slug could penetrate a ship’s kinetic barriers and

pierce its hull.

Their intent wasn’t to destroy the Normandy! They wanted the crew dead by radiation

pulse! Did they desire the ship? Or Shepard’s body? The Shadow Broker had once sought

the latter; maybe he was still after it, pulling the mercenaries’ strings. Either way, she

guessed that the Normandy was supposed to be attacked when berthed, where Huth waited.

Killing the crew now would see the ship crash over Nos Astra. Perhaps that was still

acceptable.

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At that moment, the ship banked hard to port. When it levelled out, the port bay door

creaked into life. Tirahin stood firm in the burst of air. Tasale’s orange glare spilled into the

hold, as the door reclined completely, revealing the vast, glistening cityscape far below.

Above the wind noise, Tirahin heard moving servos. The cannon had extended its barrel,

and was slowly tracking from the freighter’s bow. She edged as close to the open door as

she dared, and looked out. The Normandy was coming, the sunset reflecting from its hull,

its iconic shape unmistakable.

*

“What’s that freighter doing?” said Captain Sesay, examining the sensor readings from the

bridge of the Cerberus SR-2 prototype ship, codenamed Orthus.

“Athabasca-class freighter, MSV Thoresend,” said EDI, the ship’s AI – or more

specifically, its Enhanced Defence Intelligence – from beside the captain, her spherical,

holographic shape flickering. “Course correction indicates the ship is making for orbit.”

“We’re still running silent?”

“Green across the board, sir,” said Helmsman Stokes.

The captain leaned over and keyed the intercom. “Donnelly, keep an eye on the

emission sinks. I don’t want another screw-up like Tremar, understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Power Engineer Donnelly, in a thick, Scottish accent.

There was a pause, in which the engineer’s comm terminal remained open.

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“Can you believe that, Gabby?” said Donnelly. “He still thinks it was my fault! What

an arsehole!”

“Kenneth, the comm’s still open…” said Propulsion Engineer Daniels.

Donnelly’s terminal quickly disconnected.

Captain Sesay rolled his eyes. “I sure hope Shepard’s accruing patience. Otherwise,

when the beauty sleep’s over, there’s gonna be a man – one very specific man –

overboard.”

The captain looked out of the bridge windows, trying to pinpoint the incoming

freighter. “Any risk of visual ID?”

“The Thoresend is now within six kilometres of the Orthus, and closing,” said EDI.

“If we remain on our present trajectory, there is significant risk of visual identification. I

recommend we return to orbit.”

“Why not change our heading?”

“We’re between shipping lanes, sir,” said the helmsman. “The kind of correction

required may lead to other ships spotting us. The only sure way to avoid detection is to

abandon our run.”

“Precisely,” said EDI.

“Damn it!” Nos Astra was one of the few places in the galaxy where they could push

the stealth systems to their limits. “Will there be another window today?”

13



“Negative, captain,” said EDI.

“Alright. Maintain our current heading.”

“Sir?”

“We didn’t come all this way to leave data-less. You’re a talented pilot, Mr Stokes; I

trust you to slip us through unseen.”

“Yes, sir.”

*

Tirahin faced the cannon, planting her feet and dropping into neutral pelvis. As the barrel

tracked towards her, she activated her omni-tool, and loaded a copy of her and Liara’s holo,

taken in Nos Libertos. She smiled.

The Normandy was about to pass them. Even at this distance it was noticeably larger

than the ship that Liara had described. Tirahin activated her tech armour, then mustered all

of her focus and strength. She created a colossal biotic wall, which filled the bay doorway.

The cannon fired. Its explosive cacophony threatened her resolve. The slug penetrated

her wall. She mustn’t let it pass, no matter what. Her biotics flared. A mass effect bubble

surrounded her, capturing the bomb. It detonated. The blast was held, but magnified, within

her reinforced shell.

The Thoresend pointed to the stars. Tirahin’s smouldering body fell from the hold, as

the Orthus SR-2 continued its flyby.

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